The Journey So Far

A chronological stroll thru the history of Broadway Musicals as they came to be recorded by Hollywood--the summation of a lifelong vocation, and a journey of self discovery. Equal parts cultural history, critique and personal memoir. Comingnext: Jersey Boys

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

'80s Also Rans

The Bway musical withered and nearly died in the 1980s.
There were hits, sure, but they were flukes, or compensations, or junk food.
Sondheim continued to thrill the culturati, but the last of the Golden Age
class were fading out. Jerry Herman took a final victory bow--phew! Cy Coleman
had hits at the beginning and end of the decade, but nothing between. Kander
& Ebb were running on empty, and Charles Strouse had nothing but bad luck.
The paramount news--and the most telling of Bway's desperation--was the
wholesale embrace of British imports. But as far as most of America was
concerned, Bway wasn't where it was happening. Few cared anymore. I was among
them--tho its hold on me still meant I had one eye on the Rialto.

My 14 visits to NY over the decade led to 65 theater
trips, but there were other lures for me in Manhattan as well, including close
friends, brief romances, hopeful connections, and trafficking in the
uptown/downtown shuffle. Of the 16 new Bway musicals I would see in the '80s, four
would be made into movies (and will be gotten to in good order); and most of
the others, if not outright flops (yes, Merrily
We Roll Along, but also Chess, Smile
& Grind) were half-season
stumbles (Baby, The Rink.). Something
about the climate, or just my own intellectual snobbery turned me off to the
populist "tourist" hits: 42nd
Street, My One & Only, Les Miz, Phantom; tho I did see Cats very early on before it became a
toxic joke.

A major indicator of Bway's decline was the onslaught of
revivals. During the Golden Age (Oklahoma
to Follies) Bway was fertile and
creative enuf to discourage revivals from an earlier, less developed theatrical
period. But in the '70s and '80s, there were no less than 48 Bway revivals of
Golden Age shows. If new musicals were increasingly based on old movies, now
they were even resorting to staging original Hlwd musicals--with mixed results.
Twyla Tharp's revisionist take on Singin'
in the Rain didn't catch on. Nor did more faithful--if inevitably
disappointing--recreations of 7 Brides
for 7 Bros, and Meet Me in St. Louis.
These were certinly inspired by the runaway success of David Merrick's
production of 42nd Street. The swan song of the fabled producer, it was even
more the final triumph of Gower Champion who had lost his mojo thru most of the
'70s, and had the good PR sense to die the very afternoon of the show's Opening
Night, only to have Merrick break the news at the cast's final bow. It was
every bit as hokey as the plots of those '30s Warners musicals,

films such as.
. . 42nd Street. Despite running
longer than Fiddler and Grease the show wasn't catnip to Hlwd.
Essentially a revue of Harry Warren/Al Dubin songs thrillingly staged by
Champion, hung on a hoary plot of cliches, it was great stage fun for the
nostalgically-inclined, but not a sell to the multiplexes. Still it might have
been considered in a more welcoming time for screen musicals. Stanley Donen
attempted something like it in Movie,
Movie--and found little market for it '78. Champion had found a way of transforming
the '33 film in all its oversized surrealism into a Winter Garden-size tap
extravaganza. From Hlwd to Bway, with Love. P.S: They don't need it back.

Mark Bramble who co-wrote 42nd Street, (with Michael Stewart) also conceived & wrote Barnum,
which opened just 4 months earlier. That the name was still known to nearly one
& all, was a testament to the 19th century's greatest showman, whose story
seemed a natural musical. Producer Alex H. Cohen, who fancied himself in David
Merrick's league (he wasn't), tried to get a show out of it in the'60s, going
so far as to announce it arriving in tandem with the NY World's Fair. Nothing
came of it. Years later Mark Bramble, who got his start working for Merrick
would pick up the mantle, and see it to completion. Altho PT Barnum cycled thru
various businesses called Show, he came to his most lasting venture with Bailey
very late in life. Yet Bramble structured the show in the frame of a circus,
with sideshow acts on & off-stage, a chorus of jugglers, acrobats, aerialists
and clowns, set in a Big Top tent. My antipathy to such sawdust and tinsel made
it hard for me to find much enthusiasm for Barnum,
despite my high regard for Cy Coleman's Bway ouevre--especially coming off a
career best with On the 20th Century.
But this, along with I Love My Wife
are among my least favorite of his scores-both of them, curiously, to lyrics by
Michael Stewart; both somehow feeling lazy. Everything sounds like a pickup
from somewhere else: "Come Follow the Band" a retread of I Love My Wife's "Hey There, Good
Times." The tongue-twisting "Museum Song" recalling "Flash,
Bang, Wallop" from Half a Sixpence.
Jerry Herman is emulated several times over: "One Brick at a Time"
could have come from Mame or Dear World. "The Colors of My
Life" sounds like "I Won't Send Roses" on another day,
"Join the Circus" a rewrite of Mack
& Mabel's "Big Time." Busy production numbers that feel more
generic than memorable.

A last triumph (if not final show) for director- choreographer, Joe Layton, Barnum was a modest two-year hit, that
first brought Glenn Close to public attention--tho not in any way that
predicted the level of stardom she would soon reach. To be fair she was saddled
with a charmless part; a stringent wife--in contrast to Jim Dale's boundless
enthusiasm. The show seems too much a story of a marriage--and not an
interesting one at that. Jim Dale was regarded a Star--and for the purposes
here, he was, winning a Tony in the kind of part that Robert Preston might have
played at an earlier time. Talented as he was, I never saw much in him to get
excited about. And apparently, neither did Hlwd. There isn't much characater in
the story, just a series of "And then I did..." bits, presented as
center ring acts, which no doubt didn't lure any studio buyers. Yet, the length
& breadth of Barnum's biography has ample cinematic possibility. Whatsmore
the role is wide open to casting. You can just as easily imagine Bill Murray as
you can Warren Beatty or Dustin Hoffman, William Hurt, Steve Martin. Or just about
any other Hlwd leading man. But then given the times, and the lack of studio
interest in musicals, it would've been more likely that such a project would be
started from the ground up and a very different PT Barnum story told, in a very
different way. As was now more common than not, the show was filmed for
television, in this case by the BBC, with the London production starring
Michael Crawford (available to one & all on YouTube) filmed with a live
audience. Watching it now hasn't elevated my opinion of the musical--nor, to be
honest, its carney staging--but surprisingly put me in favor of Michael
Crawford, who maintains a credible American accent and is more appealing here
than in anything else I've seen.

Lauren Bacall was a unlikely musical star. An outsize
personality with a foghorn voice--a movie star by legal age, the kind of star
who dictates the show, rather than the other way around. And since Bacall had
the time of her life in 1970's Applause,
there seemed good reason to find another property to continue the fun. As house
writers for Liza Minnelli, Kander & Ebb knew their way around Big Lady
musicals, and were happily recruited to supply tunes to Peter Stone's
adaptation of another vintage Hlwd movie, Woman of the Year. This one hasn't
nearly the cachet of All About Eve,
and Stone wisely veered from the Michael Kanin/Ring Lardner Jr.
screenplay--which despite winning an Oscar hasn't really aged well, and hinges
its reputation on the initial pairing of Tracy & Hepburn. Updated to the
Reagan era, this Woman is way bigger
than co-star, Harry Guardino (taking a second shot at a musical 17 years after Anyone Can Whistle) who gets below-title
billing. Big Lady musicals have subordinate co-stars--and curtain calls
designed to celebrate the stars' magnificence over the show's. But this was
feeling somewhat stale in 1981--the era of Big Lady musicals was mostly over.
And tho Bacall had herself another hit, another Tony, and a nightly playground
on Bway, the show subsequently sunk to the lower tiers of the Kander & Ebb
catalog. It's not likely to be revived now, unless at Encores! with Lupone or
Ebersole--cementing it as a musuem piece. A game Raquel Welch took over from
Bacall and kept the tourists coming the second year. But when Debbie Reynolds
replaced Welch (could any three women be less alike?) the show quickly closed,
undoubtedly precipated by a notorious incident when Debbie "woke up"
on the Palace stage in mid-show and didn't know where she was or what she was
doing. (Oh, to have been in that audience!)

The score is peppy, tho the OCR suffers from abysmal
orchestration. It announces itself with a hollow blast--daring all but the most
dire of Show Queens to refrain from cringing. But some of K&E's songs land
with flair. "It Isn't Working" has a nice bass line propelling its
intention as "buzz." "I Wrote the Book" is a ragtime
stroll, too upbeat for the blues, tho the lyrics are about the Man Who Got
Away. Ebb's lyrics have an unusual amount of contemporary references, much like
Cole Porter's Roosevelt-era scores. A practice that has nearly disappeared at
this time. "One of the Boys" is a textbook Big Lady number, one in
which Bacall gets thrown around by those who can dance, in a whirlwind of worship. And "The Poker
Game" is a jaunty brisk waltz (tho a poor cousin to Fiorello's "Politics & Poker"). But I'm not sold on
"The Grass is Always Greener," as either tune or punchline parade.
The duet, performed by Bacall & Marilyn Cooper--the longtime Bway trouper
whose one leading role (tho in a large cast) was I Can Get it For You Wholesale--and we know who stole that one.
Twenty years later Cooper got a Tony for her turn as housewife in curlers; with
a single duet--"surefire" but somehow hollow. (Does Bacall really envy the skill of making meat
loaf?) But where once upon a time, Rosalind Russell could find triumph on Bway
after a sagging film career, and see her Hlwd fortunes spectacularly revive,
Bacall had no such luck--if even she wanted it. Of course Hlwd wasn't buying
anymore Big Lady tuners--middle-aged ladies had enuf trouble getting any parts
in movies. Woman of the Year didn't
even get the TV treatment like Applause
had (to little impact).

Kander & Ebb's following project was a contemporary
mother/daughter psycho-drama. Marrying songs to a book by Terrence McNally, The
Rink was a musical mismash meshed to two outsized Bway personalities:
Chita & Liza. The two had played beautifully off each other during the
weeks Liza had taken over for the ailing Gwen Verdon in Chicago. Chita was a legend who hadn't yet won a Tony (she would
here) but like Barbara Cook, curiously, not a big box office draw. Liza was.
But the show was written to Chita's strengths, not Liza's--her part here less
Star than character actor (a hardened version of Sterile Cuckoo's Pookie Adams--on the verge of middle age). In
confrontation, commentary and flashback, McNally's book has the two women
rehash their history all evening in detailed, but somehow uninteresting
specifics--centered around a dilapidated roller rink--as some sort of metaphor
(or is it?) for their relationship. The score is full of pleasant,
undistinguished, recognizable K&E numbers, many steeped in narrative
details, mini-dramas in song; some nearly dreadful ("What Happened to the
Old Days?" "All the Children in a Row"); others ghosts of tunes
from previous K&E musicals. "The Apple Doesn't Fall" looks to
replicate the crowd-pleasing duet from Woman
of the Year--but this time is even more blatant pandering. Only one song
comes thru with such shattering clarity that it puts the rest of the score in
the shade. The melodic line of "(Gee, It's Good to See You) After All
These Years" grabs the ear after so much ho-hum to remind what a great
tune sounds like. It feels so solidly classic, one could mistake it for a old
standard (and would have worked well in the vaudeville-rich Chicago). The irony is the song is
virtually a throwaway in The Rink,
sung by neither star but only the six-man chorus. Along with the headliners
this was the whole cast (8--count 'em--8), another sign of the dire economic
times. But even Liza's name and Bway return couldn't push the show beyond a six
month run. By the '80s her run as a Hlwd Star was already over (despite Arthur) and The Rink wasn't going to resuscitate that.

Stephen Sondheim--in collaboration with Hal
Prince--barreled thru the '70s building an untouchable portfolio of
evolutionary shows. Yet the knives were out for them in '81's Merrily
We Roll Along. I managed to catch the 9th of the 16 original Bway
performances and found it more pleasing than any Sondheim I'd seen since Company. That both were written by
George Furth says something about my taste in Sondheim's librettists (Hint:
problematic). Merrily also brought
out a brighter, livelier, more "Bway" score than any Sondheim had
written in awhile. And tho I could see minor problems in the show, it hardly
seemed deserving of a quick flop. What it had really needed was an out of town
tryout. But the '80s economics combined with the dying market for Bway musicals
made luxuries like tryouts ever more obsolete. And in the end, Merrily was doomed for the masses by
being at odds with itself. On surface, a bright bauble of Musical Comedy--a
show about kids, as Hal Prince's wife requested--but one with as much patented
Sondheim cleverness and nuance; in this case playing with thematic deconstruction
as the show moves forward and the story backward. It's not a stretch to say
it's too smart for its own good. Over the years numerous revisals and stagings
have materialized to earn the show cachet and enter the Sondheim pantheon. But
tho the medium of film would suit such a peripatetic narrative, it's not likely
we're going to see a movie version. And yet it's entirely likely that in the
technologically accessible universe of tomorrow some young, future Sondheim
fan(atic) will be able make their own complete film of Merrily We Roll Along using a phone or laptop.

Merrily also effectively severed the
Prince-Sondheim team, setting Steve into orbit with James Lapine; a shift even
further from the heart in favor of the intellect, as their initial work, Sunday
in the Park With George, demonstated. I saw it the month it opened on
Bway at the jewelbox Booth Theater, where I'd had the pleasure of my first Bway
play, and many others since. I even had a center orchestra seat, primed for
something great. My later friend, Larry Rubinstein, said it best: "Every
consideration was made. . . except for the audience." But there is an audience that reveres this
musical, just don't count me in. Tho an "Art" musical in every sense,
my appreciation of Sondheim's pointillist score is severely compromised by my
boredom. This wasn't a show about which anyone was bound to say: now that's entertainment! Sondheim's spiritual predecessor, Marc
Blitzstein, found little love for his genre-stretching shows in the climate of
the Golden Age, when popular art met high culture. By the 1980s that was over, and Bway was more
embracing of evolutionary musicals, tho they did little to bring in more than
the culturati. It was starting to look as if Bway was turning into the caviar
boutique that Grand Opera had become. Soon, it might need to be supported by
billionaire donors--the very point of "Putting It Together," the
tirade of commerce vs. art; the artistes
lament that Babs so related to, she had Sondheim write her new lyrics for her
Broadway album.

Seeking a story in Georges Seurat's defining painting,
Lapine could find none other than in the artist himself, deconstructing the
creative process. Consequently there are really no characters other than the
simple narratives Seurat gives each figure; and Dot--his model & mistress,
who is sloppy seconds to his Art. Girl loves boy, but boy loves brush. Even
this is stretched thru a long act, before climaxing in a breathtaking tableux vivant. Yes, it's a spectacular
piece of stagecraft, but not much of a show. And then to make an evening of it,
Lapine saddles us with another act, set one hundred years later (reminding how
much more interesting this was in Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine) hammering the point of "Art Isn't Easy," via
tribulations of Seurat's invented grandson coming to what Ethan Mordden calls a
coup de grace ending, in which
"art thanks the artist." Isn't this the ultimate narcissism? Lapine's
masturbatory libretto went hand in hand (in foot) with Sondheim's score; which
to my ears is irredeemably dreary, if not simply irritating. By the time Mandy
Patinkin starts barking in "The Day Off" I am over it. Add to that:
Bernadette Peters, howling "George!" at least a hundred times, with
all the warmth of Albee's Martha scowling at her husband, and this youthful
enchantress (so recently at her peak in MGMs '81 film, Pennies from Heaven) shows her hitherto untapped capacity for
annoyance. "Sunday" which accompanies the painting coming together,
is of course, the score's one grand gesture (and I grant you, a beautiful
one)--which proves how narrow the concept is. Still, appropriately housed at
the intimate Booth, Bway's tiniest house, the show ran as long as A Little Night Music, and likewise,
developed rabid devotees. That devotion hasn't been translated to cinema, (at
least not yet) tho like other musicals of the time (particularly those by
Sondheim) the stage production was professionally filmed and shown on PBS only
6 months after the show closed on Bway.

It had been hard times for Jerry Herman on Bway since Mame. After three undeserved flops in a
row, it was a joyous occasion that La Cage Aux Folles scored another
smash for Herman--who never again took the chance to wrap up his career on a
lesser note. At least the Tony voters valued its entertainment value over the
pretentious Sunday in the Park, and
the show ran for years. But Hlwd's anti-musical climate of the '80s & '90s
can be the only reason that La Cage wasn't
brought to the screen. It began as a hit Parisian play, which became a hit
French movie that broke all foreign film records when it hit the States in '79.
It even (astonishingly) got director Eduardo Molinaro an Oscar nomination over
Martin Ritt (Norma Rae), Ridley Scott
(Alien), Hal Ashby (Being There), Mark Rydell (The Rose) Milos Forman (Hair) James Bridges (The China Syndrome) and Woody Allen for Manhattan. Two French film sequels were
made in '81 & '85, but it was only five years after the original that Bway
had its musical version. Given that it was produced by Allan Carr--who turned Grease into Hlwd's musical box office
champ--why didn't he bring La Cage to
the screen?

I saw the show two months after it opened, on a stopover
to Rome. If I had high expectations I cannot recall, but I was surely more
excited about my first trip to Europe than anything I saw on stage at the
Palace. Most disappointing was Harvey Fierstein's book, which reeked of
pandering (unlike his blazing Torch Song
Trilogy) to the hetero crowd. But altho Bway musicals were the known
province of queers, gays had never been the central characters before; and
those involved (all gay, as well), apparently felt this had to go down sweetly,
and in feathers, to tame the wary masses. A "groundbreaking" show,
thus, that to us way-ahead-of-you folk felt patronizing and old-fashioned. Nor
did Arthur Laurents' direction give it the buzz & polish it needed from a
Tommy Tune or Michael Bennett. It also lacked a charismatic or starry cast.
George Hearn and Gene Barry had all the wattage you'd expect from the Westbury
Music Fair, not an original Bway cast. Think of Raul Julia as Zaza, or Kevin
Kline; opposite Jerry Orbach, Robert Goulet, or John Cullum. And finally, why
keep it set in the South of France? Herman's score sounds Gallic via accordian,
but neither it nor the characters are more than cardboard French. Early in the
show's creation, a New Orleans setting was considered--which could have leant
it a Dixieland flair. But a foreign locale was safer still for a queer-friendly
environment--what happens in St. Tropez stays in St. Tropez.

With no movie of La
Cage in the works, and sensing still more coin to mint in a fully American
adaptation, Elaine May set it in Miami's South Beach, rewrote it in her comic
voice and gave it to Mike Nichols to spin The
Birdcage into another huge hit, with an exceptional cast led by Nathan Lane
(still shy his Superstar Bway status) & Robin Williams, with Dianne Wiest,
Gene Hackman, Christine Baranski & Hank Azaria giving/getting that golden
Nichols polish. Tho it's not a musical, disco club songs give it a
musical-adjacent feel; and with a candy-colored neon-lit Miami Beach it looks
just as dreamy as Fox's 1940 Technicolor, studio-built Moon Over Miami. My intial skepticism toward The Birdcage, I later realized, had to do with my residual feelings
about Fierstein's sugar-coated "medicine" for the uninitiated. By
'96, Nichols needed no such softening, even letting Azaria go full-out Latina
in an outrageous (and severely under-dressed) performance. Nathan Lane was no
less over-the-top, which was great for Robin Williams to underplay, and both
managed to charm despite potentially offensive stereotypes. At this point it
appears the material has reached its apogee.

And yet, the musical survives, with already two major Bway
revivals in 2004 & 2010. And for that credit goes to Jerry Herman. As with
all of his scores, just a half dozen songs carry the brunt of the show--a
formula that Herman perfected via frequent reprises and slight revisions. The
opening club song, "We Are What We Are," a bubbly
"Wilkommen" becomes a "Before the Parade Goes By"-like
anthem in the defiant first act closer: "I Am What I Am." "With
Anne on My Arm," gets both straight & gay pairings, and "Song in
the Sand" comes along every several scenes. (I find most of Herman's
ballads pedestrian, tho this one is better than usual.) But "A Little More
Mascara" and "La Cage aux Folles" are in league with other
Herman classics, tho the OCR doesn't really do them full justice, as a listen
to the first demo recordings (released in a short-lived series: Broadway/First
Take in 2000) would suggest. But even the title song, a rousing can-can that
reinforces the Herman tradition cannot outshine the show's 11 o'clock celebration,
"The Best of Times," a fitting exclamation point to his Bway output.
In the end, Jean Poiret's original story was better served in other
incarnations, but La Cage aux Folles--The Broadway Musical, was a canvas Jerry
Herman brushed with his unique, if old-fashioned tunefulness. But a film now
seems as unlikely as a remake of Rose
Marie.

Consider the musical progeny of the Public Theater that
graduated to Bway: Hair, Two Gentleman of
Verona, A Chorus Line, Richard Foreman's Threepenny Opera, The Pirates of Penzance, all hits, and then one stumble,
The Human Comedy--but soon followed
byThe
Mystery of Edwin Drood, another hit and an odd one at that. What all
those musicals have in common is their inherent theatricality--making
translation to cinema not simply a challenge, but one courting futility.
Michael Weller and Milos Forman pulled off the trick with Hair, but Drood would
present more difficulty still. Billed "the solve-it-your-self
musical," the show's gimmick in keeping with the unsolved mystery of
Dicken's final, unfinished novel, is to give the audience the decision in
choosing the villain as well as the final pair of lovers, making for 37
possible outcomes--something untenable in a screen-play, which has but one
finite choice. (Yes, Clue--the movie
of the board game--toyed with that in DVD extras, but...) Drood was also a play within a play; Dickens' brutal story, but as
played by an 1873 music hall troupe, who play up the contrast between actor and
character, going so far as to make Edwin Drood a trouser role (giving Betty
Buckley the best part she ever had.) No less than six performers were Tony
nominated from the show (including winner, George Rose) but, criminally, not Buckley.

Musicals are so tricky that few attempt to write them
entirely on their own. Fewer still pull it off: Meredith Willson, Frank
Loesser, Sandy Wilson, Jonathan Larson, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lionel Bart did the
hat-trick with Dickens, which may have encouraged Rupert Holmes to tackle Drood, all by himself. A pop song and
jingle writer first, Holmes grew into quite a renaissance man; a recording
artist then producer (a fave of Streisand for awhile--she sang two of his songs
in A Star is Born); and after Drood a playwright, TV showrunner (he
wrote all 56 episodes of AMC's early radio sitcom, Remember WENN) and novelist. Later still he wrote four more
musicals, but without composing their scores. Which is a shame, as Drood reveals Holmes has a very rich and
theatrical musicality--one unlike any other composer working in mid-'80s
theater. Holmes even orchestrated the show, which makes the OCR glisten in a
way many other musicals of the period do not. Inspired by the British pantomime
shows from his youth in England (he would grow up in America), Holmes managed
to compose a timeless if period-appropriate sound, using elements of Gilbert
& Sullivan, symphonic song, operetta and English music hall, without
reeking of pastiche. Nor was there any hint of imitation Sondheim. I came to
the show late, having missed it in NY, and introduced via a bus & truck
company in Pasadena, which did little to spark my appreciation. It was only
years later that I came upon the OCR with fresh ears and found it a revelation.
Songs like "Two Kinsmen," "Moonfall" and "Perfect
Strangers," each utterly unlike the other are unique yet inviting. More
conventional tunes such as the G&S-like tongue-twister "Both Sides of
the Coin," and the round-robin "Don't Quit While You're Ahead"
(which also doubles as another number, "Settling Up the Score") are no less impressive."The Writing on
the Wall" builds to a stirring finale, and "The Wages of Sin"
offers a sisterly nod to Lionel Bart.

Aside from Buckly & Rose, the show starred British
jazz vocalist and West End actress, Cleo Laine in her Bway debut and many fresh
performers like Howard McGillin and Patti Cohenour. Donna Murphy was in the
chorus as were Judy Kuhn and future director, Rob Marshall. A 2012 revival was
no less on the emerging-star nose: Will Chase, Andy Karl, Stephanie J. Block,
Jessie Mueller, Betsy Wolfe; with the eternal Chita Rivera in Laine's role of
Princess Puffer. Tho the show with it's audience-chosen ending is not an
obvious screen candidate, a potentially clever movie could be adapted from
Holmes' concept--perhaps adding yet another layer of remove, having modern
actors wrestling with their screen roles as Victorian musical hall actors,
performing a dark work by Dickens. (Much as the period/modern contrast was
beautifully realized in Harold Pinter's screenplay of The French Lieutenant's Woman). Of course its artful, pop-free
score wouldn't have been a mass-market lure unless, perhaps Holmes' fan, Babs
took a crack at playing Puffer (not so bad an idea). But even then it's too
"special"--caviar for the general. Nice flick if you can get it--Hlwd
isn't going to. But if you listen to the OCR with closed eyes, you might
envision it. I have.

No one in the desolate Bway climate of the '80s thrived
more than Andrew Lloyd Webber who, in coming late to the party, made it his
own. Tho JC Superstar originated on
Bway, it was a far greater hit in London, which thereafter took pride of origin
for his musicals. But subsequent Bway transfers, beginning with Evita at the start of the decade,
weren't just hits, some were the biggest hits of all time. Evita concluded his partnership with Tim Rice, but their earliest
collaboration which grew from a school commission to a full scale musical, made
its belated Bway debut in '82: Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat.Both shows were
still running when Cats

turned the Winter Garden into a litter box--for 18 long
years. Undeniably, Lloyd-Webber found musical inspiration in T.S. Eliot's words
and in "Memory" found an instant-classic aria comparable to
Puccini--which some cite as an accusation. But the massive garbage heap set,
the decidedly sub-par choreography and the cast of anthropomorphic felines made
for a target of ridicule equal to the show's global success. I confess I enjoyed
listening to the album until the I saw the show--after which I've almost never
desired to hear it again. Given the musical's almost unprecedented popularity,
it's hard to understand why a movie hasn't yet materialized. (The standard
filmed stage show was made to soak up coin in markets like Japan). Lately
there's been more printed discussion of a feature film again in the works, and
this may well happen. Tho it baffles me why they'd attempt it in live action
when it would seem a natural for animation. Why hasn't Disney weighed in?

Unlike one of his idols, Richard Rodgers (who moved from
Hart to Hammerstein), L-W left Rice behind for interchangeable second-rate
lyricists, while raising his own profile to a brand status comparable only to
Sondheim (with whom he shares a birthday: March 22). Tell Me on a Sunday was a solo song-cycle of a woman's romantic
travails that built from workshop to recording to BBC special before hitting
the West End, and eventually Bway in '85; combined with a one act dance recital
based on some of L-W's classical tinkling; the evening now titled Song
& Dance. The show was retooled for Bernadette Peters, giving her
that long-elusive Tony, but ultimately it wasn't much different or better than
Liza's alter ego in The Act--characters
that are far less interesting than the actors playing them. Starlight
Express was as much a plotless

revue as Cats; tho a step even further from the human condition: these
characters are trains; for Chrissake,
played by actors on roller skates. Set to a pop-rock-disco score of little
distinction, I can scarcely find energy to expend any thoughts about the
musical--despite having enjoyed it well enuf in the moment when I saw it in
Vegas (where it had a 4 year run at the Hilton--a first for a Bway show on The
Strip. Even more astonishing, it ran 18 years in London, but only 2 on
Bway--even at a time when the pickin's were slim. More than any other L-W
spectacle this one could only be imagined on film as animation.

Of the waning years of Bway's 20th century Ethan Mordden
noted, "These days our flops are sometimes more musical than our
hits." Scores more deserving of their Bway fates include, Rags, The Human Comedy, Smile,A Doll's Life, and Roza. But none more so than Chess. An ambitious pop opera from
Tim Rice after his split with Lloyd Webber--showing a clear fork in direction.
Rice, who once lobbied for a show about the Cuban Missle Crisis (but
surrendered to JCSuperstar instead)
remained intrigued with the Cold War as a musical subject. L-W moved on to cats.
Rice, inspired by the politics behind chess tournaments and the outsized
characters of Bobby Fischer & Anatoly Karpov (who never played a match
despite many attempts) saw an angle for his Soviet/American theme, and
recruited half of ABBA (Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus, looking to broaden
their portfolio) to write the score. Like before, Rice put the show on disc to
raise its profile. An audio "out-of-town tryout," the elaborate
double-album featured Brit diva, Elaine Paige, backed by the London Symphony
Orchestra--and was on its own terms, a hit. Initially, Michael Bennett was set
to direct the West End premiere, but was forced to withdraw when AIDS began to
overtake him. Trevor Nunn took over, and got the show a 3-year run, but it
wasn't deemed ready for global export. Nunn himself was not satisfied, and
hoped to redeem himself with the Bway production as a radical makeover; most
significantly the addition of an actual libretto by Richard Nelson, dropping
the thru-sung pattern set by previous Rice/L-W projects. But even a stellar
cast couldn't shine thru a dull production, poorly staged and with little
visual flair. (You could gauge all that from just the Bway poster.) Opening in
the shadow of the review-proof behemoth, Phantom
of the Opera, gave critics license to carp about soulless British
(p)operas, and the show staggered thru a two month run.

It was only on impulse that I bought a seat at TKTS for a
matinee at the Imperial, while on another of my less-frequent jaunts to NY. To
my surprise I found the show quite moving; the music thrilling. For sure the
production was flawed, but Judy Kuhn, David Carroll and Philip Casnoff were
flawless, and the addition of a spoken libretto gave the music breathing
room--which made the score, as it rose up in great swells, all the more
effective. For some time after that I was obsessed with both the concept album
and the Bway OCR, each with their own special highlights. The story's set-up is
awkward in both, but once we get to the "Quartet (A Model of Decorum and
Tranquility") the music kicks into gear, following one beautiful number
after another. The "Terrace (Mountain) Duet" and "You &
I" are pure operetta in form, yet sound entirely contemporary in style
even draped in lush symphonic orchestration. "Anthem" has the majesty
of a real national statement--the song of Diaspora. "I Know Him So
Well" is a solid rock ballad, a great female duet. But the show's pop
single, "One Night in Bangkok" is the least interesting and most
dispensable number in the score. "Nobody's Side," on the other hand
is explosive and catharic, and for several years became my go-to song to blast
when I needed release from the frustrations of my career or personal
relationships. The Bway score was edited, restructured and re-arranged, and best
of all blessed with a new song, "Someone Else's Story," that has to
be among the greatest of the decade (aside from being on point with my own
feelings at the time, stuck in a losing emotional quagmire.) Despite its
tarnished Bway drive-by, Chess
continues to find fans and productions. I drove to Orange County for an
arena-sized tour in May '90; and saw an intimate equity-waiver black box
version several years later. All imperfect, yet all making claims for the
show's worthiness. With the break-up of the Soviet Union the musical seemingly
lost its bite and relevance for some time, and now is consigned a period
piece--which with time only works in its favor.

As with nearly everything from Bway in the '80s, Hlwd
wasn't showing much interest. But I could see a movie made of Chess quite clearly--one directed by Tim
Burton. He would get to a musical much later, and one that made sense with his
sensibility (perhaps a bit too obviously), but Chess would've been a more interesting choice--with or without
Johnny Depp as our angry young American. If not John Travolta or Jon Bon
Jovi--or, for that matter any charismatic rock star. As for the romantic
Russian, how about Daniel Day Lewis or Ralph Fiennes? And for their vis a vis, the field ranges from
Juliette Binoche to Helena Bonham Carter to Marisa Tomei. With a tightened
screenplay, and Burton's unique visual palette, Chess could've been one beaut of a film musical. But in the wake of
Reagan's "Morning in America" it was mostly Bedtime for Broadway. The
Main Stem survived by virtue of imports and revivals. New American musicals
were few and fewer still were hits. Some of the better ones were flatly
rejected, as Bway's national influence sunk to a new low. This was no Silver
Age, it was a Bronze.

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About this Blog

At the intersection of Broadway and Hollywood,

the Musical has been my lifelong touchstone. How did this happen? What does it mean? Herewith an analysis of my own"glass menagerie;" a Proustian trail of memory and perhaps a final summation of my thoughts and feelings on this unrelenting vocation.

About Me

A man on the verge of a musical breakdown. Why did I do it? What did it get me? Scrapbooks full of me in the background: New York, Hollywood, San Francisco. Palm Springs. This time, boys, I'm takin' the bows.